


After 01x04 (The Miracle Job)

by PseudoLeigha



Series: (More) 2AM Conversations [4]
Category: Leverage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 14:33:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6524053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoLeigha/pseuds/PseudoLeigha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate and Alec discuss miracles, faith, and Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After 01x04 (The Miracle Job)

The youngest member of the Leverage team and the eldest sat across the conference table from each other, arguing in circles over, of all things, miracles. Everyone else had long since abandoned the debate for what they considered more interesting pastimes: Sophie to go have nice long bath (a statement that had garnered her a speculative look from Nate and an eye-roll from Eliot); Eliot to… probably a gym somewhere (he didn’t say, just shouted that he was leaving); and, well, Alec frankly had no idea where Parker might have gone. She vanished as soon as they got back to the office.

Alec himself was slowly getting drunk between marveling at the fact that people actually had conversations like this outside of internet comment sections and being appalled at the fact that Nate was totally one of those asshole atheists who had no respect for religious folks, despite his former-almost-priest status. Or at least he was doing a damn good impression of one. He wasn’t really sure if the older man was faking at this point. He actually seemed kind of pissed. And not in a drunk way.

All appearances to the contrary, Nate had been enjoying himself quite a lot. It was rare that he found anyone willing to debate any aspect of religion with a former Jesuit almost-priest, and less often that he found anyone who would argue for morality while he argued against it. He wasn’t quite sure how, but he found himself on the wrong side of this debate, not just playing Devil’s Advocate. As soon as he realized that, however, he became distinctly uncomfortable.

“What is your point, again, Hardison?” he asked, tired of covering the same ground over and over.

“Basically, we shouldn’t have done it. I still think we shouldn’t have done it. That’s it! That’s the whole _god_ damn point.”

“Well, we did. You faked a miracle so well we got the Vatican involved. You should be proud of yourself. Not much to be done about it now,” Nate smirked.

“Man, that is _not_ the point. We goin’ to hell.”

“Paul told everyone it was faked in the end,” Nate pointed out with a yawn. “It’s not like we did any lasting harm, and we got the mark. Saved the church. It was a win.”

“What about they’ faith, man? We got all those people all fired up, an’ then jus’ pulled the rug out from under them. Tha’s cold, man. Nana wouldn’t like that any more than fakin’ the miracle in the firs’ place.”

Finally, _finally_ , Nate seemed to get it. Or at least he stopped talking and gave Alec a chance to regroup.

Unfortunately for the hacker, the next thing Nate said was a complete shift from what Alec _expected_ , which meant his carefully marshalled arguments about how belief was important, whether you believed in God or science or humanity or whatever, were totally useless.

There was a layer of serious pensiveness he hadn’t ever heard before when Nate said, “You know, after the job, Paul said he thought we did pull off a miracle.”

“But you said he knew! From the beginning!”

“Not the statue. He did know about that. He said it was a miracle that five thieves saved his church.”

“So what, we didn’t make a miracle, we _were_ the miracle?” Alec snorted. “Yeah, man, I don’t think it counts when your ‘miracle’ lies an’ cheats an’ steals an’ cons its way into being.”

Nate held himself back from agreeing with the younger man. “Yeah, well, you know what they say.”

“What’s that?”

“The Lord moves in mysterious ways,” Nate quoted, but there was a darkness in his eyes and a hint of mockery in his tone that Alec didn’t like.

“Why do I get the impression you not impressed with the way the Lord moves, Nate?” The man snorted at his attempt at subtlety, but Alec wasn’t about to be put off. “You got some kinda beef with the old man in the sky?”

And whether it was the absurd incongruity of Alec’s phrasing or the fact that he had just been getting close to the edge all night, Nate snapped, words falling with sharp, acidic bitterness from his tongue. “My son died, Hardison. Sam _died_. He was nine. He spent the last year of his life sick and in pain. I spent all that year praying that there was something, anything, that would save him, and there was one last chance to help him dangled in front of me and then it was yanked away and he died anyway. If I was still a praying man, I’d pray you never have to watch that – never have to watch a child die, watch him suffer, while you stand by helpless and watch everyone else fail to save your son. Having the rest of my life fall apart after that was nothing in comparison. Even Maggie leaving wasn’t… wasn’t _anything_. So yes, if I still believed in God, you could say I had ‘a beef’ with him.”

Hardison’s eyes were round and far too white in his face when Nate looked up again, but he steeled himself to speak, which might, Nate allowed, have been the bravest thing he’d ever seen the young hacker do. “Geez, man, tell us how you really feel.”

Nate chuckled, just a little hysterically. “It’s the Problem of Suffering – the Problem of Evil. How can an all-powerful God allow suffering and evil into the world, if He loves us, if He cares about us? And there’s answers – of course there’s answers. God’s testing us. It’s part of His plan for us. But the people who give you those answers, they don’t see… it’s not about us, me, the survivors – the ones tested or shaped by loss, and where we end up.

“It’s – It’s about Sam. It’s about the _kid_ , the _innocent_ kid, who loved to ride his bike and make paper planes and used to come home from school and tell me all the things he learned in art class and begged to go to work with me on take your kid to work day, and hated cabbage and going to Maggie’s parents’ house and loved elephants and airports and wanted to be a pilot someday – it’s about _him_ suffering and _him_ dying. There’s no plan, no reason for a kid… a kid like Sam t-to die. To go through that kind of pain.” He sniffled and threw back the rest of his drink, pouring another and topping Alec’s off.

“I can only conclude,” Nate added, trying his damnedest to sound like he wasn’t about to break down in front of Hardison, who was, fuck it all, just a kid himself really, compared to Nate and the rest of the team – even Parker was older, and had probably seen more in her life than any twenty-five year old should – he shouldn’t have to deal with seeing his boss, his leader, breaking down like this. “I can only conclude,” he repeated, getting ahold of himself, dragging the conversation back to the point with a wrench, “that there is no God, or he just doesn’t give a _fuck_ about us – humans – people. Because if he did, Sam wouldn’t have died. Not like that.”

Alec sat, completely stunned, for a long moment, biting his tongue on the reflexive urge to say something glib and cocky to lighten the mood, and again on the empty platitudes ( _he’s in a better place now, he wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up over his death_ ) that were the next thing to come to mind. Somehow he didn’t think that Nate would take either of those tactics very well. He couldn’t claim to know the man as well as Sophie, but they had spent a good bit of time together setting up the offices and since then, researching marks, and he knew him well enough for that.

Finally he couldn’t stand the awkward silence any longer and blurted, “You know, man… Nate… if – if you ever wanna talk about him… About Sam… You know I’d listen, right?”

Nate stood slowly, feeling every bit of twice his age, and patted the younger man on the shoulder as he made his way toward the door. “Thanks, Alec,” he said. “I just – I can’t. Not yet. Maybe… someday. But…” he trailed off.

“Yeah,” Alec nodded and followed Nate out of the conference room. “Yeah, I get it.” He really did. When Pop died, it was months before Nana would talk about him again, even to the kids, and they’d all grown up with him and shared her pain. He couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a child, or bringing himself to share that with someone who never knew them, and who, when it came down to it, he hadn’t really known all that long himself, either. But still, he had to say it. “Offer’s open.”

Nate paused by the outer doorway, looked back briefly. The last word of the night was almost too quiet for Alec to catch, but he _thought_ it was, “Sam would have liked you.”


End file.
